HBR: Astronaut Scott Kelly on work-life balance ... in space

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During Scott Kelly’s 20 years as a NASA astronaut, he ventured into space four times, capping his career with a yearlong stay on the International Space Station, during which he served a stint as commander. His memoir, “Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery,” is out now.

Q: When you’re up in space, does it feel like a job?

A: Yes. When you wake up, you’re at work, and when you go to sleep, you’re still at work. You’re living in your office. It’s an incredible office — magical in some ways. But it’s still work.

Q: You’ve held leadership roles throughout your career. How has your style changed over time?

A: If you’d asked me 15 years ago what kind of leader I was, I would have said I didn’t know. But now I’d say my style is based on the situation. If there’s a fire on the Space Station, I’m like a tyrant — I tell people what to do, and I don’t want any questions. But sometimes I’m more collaborative — getting the opinions of the group and then making a decision myself. Determining what to use in what situation — that’s the skill.

Q: The ISS is a collaboration among many countries. Whom do you feel you’re working for when you’re on it?

A: You feel like a representative of the whole planet, especially when you have an international crew. You work for all the different partner agencies: I’ll do a Japanese experiment. I’ll be fixing something in the European module. I’ve launched on the Russian Soyuz. At the end of the day, I’m a NASA astronaut, and I represent the U.S. government, but I do feel like an extension of the civilization of Earth.

Q: How do you build relationships with foreign astronauts, especially when the politics are fraught?

A: That’s one of the great things about the program. You draw on the strengths of people with different backgrounds. There’s potential for conflict and challenges, particularly with the Russians; we’re not always the friendliest with them. But in space you set all that aside, because we rely on those cosmonauts, and they rely on us. Even when you’re not the greatest of friends, you can work together for something that you both believe in and that has mutual benefits. Space is a great place to do that, because no one owns it. It’s a common ground where peaceful scientific collaboration can occur.

Q: Isn’t it hard to have co-workers you can’t escape?

A: Part of the astronaut selection process is a psychological profile; people who can get along with one another are chosen. A lot of my close friends, family, people I know or have worked with — they wouldn’t do well. But NASA and our international partners pick people who can deal with being in close quarters with others. On the station you have your own private space if you need to get away. I’m sure people vent to the folks on the ground. And we talk to a psychiatrist or a psychologist every couple of weeks. Occasionally someone will do something to get on your nerves, but then you realize you’re probably doing stuff to get on their nerves, too. So you just move on. I’ve seen two cosmonauts who didn’t talk to each other for months. That’s not an ideal situation.

Q: How do you handle stress and avoid burnout?

A: Exercise and having a sounding board at home helps. In some ways, one of the reasons I was asked to do this was how well I handle those kinds of things. I had a previous six-month flight, and I didn’t go crazy or cause major issues with interpersonal conflicts with the ground or my fellow crew members, which sometimes isn’t the case.

Q: Are there any techniques you use to help with that?

A: Like yoga? It depends on what the stress is from. If it’s because the ground is asking me to do something that I feel doesn’t make sense, I always feel obligated to say, “Hey, we can do this better — or maybe we shouldn’t be doing this at all.” But sometimes, so long as it’s not a safety issue, you just have to go with the flow. On the Space Station, I recognized that I have a good way of prioritizing what’s important and what’s not. I can put a lot of focus and energy on the stuff that needs to get done and not care about the stuff that doesn’t matter. I’ve noticed that a lot of my colleagues don’t have that same capability. They’re this type A personality that has to do everything perfectly all the time, and you can’t do that for a year in space.

Q: Do you forget how dangerous the work is when you’re up there for so long?

A: You’re constantly aware that you could have an emergency that could kill you. You’re not always thinking about it, because that wouldn’t be a good way to live. But you always have this underlying sense of the risk involved.

Q: So few people are chosen to be astronauts. How can they work toward a possibly unattainable goal?

A: I think you need to recognize that these are real jobs, and people do get them. Even though the odds are against you, they’re just as much against everybody else, so keep plugging away. I knew I wanted to do this, but also that I might never have the chance. And I would have been content with continuing my Navy career. So it’s important to choose a field because it interests you, not because it’s going to help you become an astronaut.

Q: Are there performance reviews in space?

A: There’s an astronaut evaluation. You have them periodically throughout your career, and absolutely after each spaceflight. It’s kind of like a peer review system. As the commander, I would have a lot to say about my crewmates and their performance, but they’d also have a lot to say about mine. We all evaluate one another. And then the management folks take those inputs and make a recommendation for your future. You also have your normal government performance appraisal, which your supervisor and your supervisor’s supervisor have to sign off on.

Q: Does anyone ever fail?

A: We do have people told they’ll never fly in space again because they screwed it up so badly. Or some will come back and hear “OK, you did a good job, but we don’t see you being the commander of the Space Station, so you’re probably never going again, because we’ve got a lot of other guys like you who haven’t flown yet.” So they don’t all get stellar reviews. Most of them do a pretty good job, but like anything, it’s evaluated on a curve.

Q: What’s the best feedback you’ve ever gotten from a colleague?

A: One piece of feedback I remember is from my first long-duration flight. Cady Coleman, who was up there with me, said I needed to be more open to engaging with the public about what we’re doing, because it’s their space program. They’re the taxpayers. They need to be involved. At the time, I looked at it as being up there to do one job: complete the procedures on my checklist. But I took Cady’s advice on my next flight, and she was absolutely right. I was the first U.S. guy to spend that long in space, and it was important that I share the experience.

Q: Why should we invest in space travel?

A: When we do the most challenging, technically complicated things, there are benefits on Earth. An easy example is the iPhone in your pocket — telecommunications technology was invented for the space program. And I think we’re natural explorers. We need to continue to look over the horizon, whether at Mars or somewhere else. The money we spend on the space program goes to well-paying high-tech jobs. And we’re motivating kids. Even if the only thing we get out of it is their saying they’ll do their science, engineering and math homework because they want to be astronauts someday, that’s worth it. A lot of them won’t, but they will go on to work in critical industries.

Q: How do you feel about all the private companies now investing in commercial spaceflight — SpaceX and Blue Origin, for example?

A: For those companies, especially if they’re public, profit becomes important, and that’s something they have to deal with. But these commercial guys are great, and they allow NASA some extra bandwidth. As an example, if we turn low-Earth-orbit access and spaceflight over to companies, that frees NASA to do other things that are more outrageous, risky and exploration based.

Q: What’s the biggest misconception about being an astronaut?

A: That the job is all flying in space. You’re working as an engineer, supporting the people who are flying in different capacities, training for missions, studying, doing public outreach and speaking. It’s a lot of different jobs, which is what makes it great. I was an astronaut for 20 years, and I spent a year and a half of that time in space. Some guys are astronauts for 10 or 15 years and might spend a week in space.

Q: What were your favorite parts of the job?

A: The view was great. So was floating around, mostly. But for me, the best part was the challenge of doing something incredibly complicated and risky, working hard at it and being successful. You’ve got to put a lot in, and you need the help of many, many people on the ground and in space to do it. So there’s a lot of teamwork, a lot of collaboration.

Q: Why did you retire after your yearlong mission?

A: I had a lot of other opportunities, because flight is very public, very visible. I’d flown in space four times, and I probably could have flown again, but it would have been another five to 10 years. I would have been 60 years old. If you’re ever going to do anything else in your life, there’s a time to do it.

Q: What still feels like a challenge to you?

A: Writing a book.

Q: How long did that take?

A: From the time I officially started, 15 months. I had taken notes while I was on the station and during the flight, so it’s not like I was starting with a blank piece of paper. But it was a lot harder than I expected. If someone said they wanted me to write another book, I would tell my agent, “Yeah, I’ll do it. You’ve got to pay me twice as much, though.”